Weekday Morning Cult Service

Along Colorado’s Front Range, bicycling’s status falls somewhere between cult and minor religion. The Bicycle God is a demanding sort. Not only are adherents supposed to spend extravagantly on idols representing the unobtainable perfection of the ultimate bike — it’s not particularly unusual for the $500 car stopped at the traffic light next to you to have a $5,000 bicycle strapped to the roof — but hours spinning the “prayer wheels” are required. Here are snapshots from a recent Tuesday morning spent in service, with comments.

At the urging of the cultists, the western suburbs of Denver have built a very extensive network of bicycle lanes, paved trails, and unpaved trails. Some of that infrastructure is expensive. This 400-foot-long $5M suspension bridge crosses Clear Creek and joins two major pieces of the paved trail network. Historical note: the bridge is built at the confluence of Clear Creek and Ralston Creek, the site of the first gold strike in Colorado in 1850. Not that you could tell unless you already knew — all that’s there is a modest marker and a gravel parking lot, frequented only by bicyclists using it as a starting point.

Large stretches of the trail system are de facto wildlife preserves with deer, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, skunks, a wide variety of small rodents, and the occasional beaver, black bear, and mountain lion. Also the occasional fly fisherman: this stretch of Clear Creek supports a reasonable number of small trout if you know where to look for them. Most people passing over the bridges have no idea what’s underneath. I don’t know exactly how long the Clear Creek bicycle trail has been here — parts of it looked old when I moved to Colorado 27 years ago.

I’ve always been perplexed that so many of the bridge piers are covered in graffiti. Is there some unwritten rule that every vertical concrete surface must carry a message? Seriously, who’s going to wade through parts of an icy-cold stream — largely filtered snow melt except when it rains hard — in order to paint something that only the bicyclists see? While I was stopped to take this snapshot, I flipped the bike upside down to adjust a derailleur that had been giving me trouble. Two different cyclists stopped to ask if I had all the tools I needed to fix my problem. The bicycle cult looks after its own.

As I mentioned here (probably too) frequently, Denver’s suburbs are building a light rail public transit system. This is part of the line that will open in my suburb sometime next year. Every train is supposed to include space where cultists can stand with their bicycles (the RTD buses are all equipped with bike racks on the front). The two sets of rails to the left will carry passengers; they share right-of-way with the set to the right whose main purpose is to deliver grain and other materials to the Coors brewery several miles farther west. The Clear Creek trail passes that facility, still the largest single-site brewery in the world. I don’t bike out that far very often because, well, old knees and a 30-mile round trip.

The light rail system is causing substantial changes near the rail stations in the suburbs it reaches. These new luxury apartments are under construction about three blocks from what will be “my” train station. Another 700 or so apartments, condos, and townhouses are already loosely committed for the area within a half-mile of the station, and will displace mostly marginal retail locations. The bicycle cult will no doubt be well represented amongst the new people. I expect to see handlebars peeking over the balcony railings in two out of three of all the apartments once they’re filled.

Image credits, and explanations: All by the author, August 4, 2015, hereby placed in the public domain. You may have asked yourself, “Why is everything leaning to the left?” The view finder in the beat-up little digital camera I carry on the bike is improperly aligned, and I always forget that until I upload the pictures to my Mac. Posted as “private” for the first several hours, so visible only by the editors, while I learned what kinds of HTML the site’s post creation tools would break for some browsers.

69 Responses

It’s not particularly unusual for the $500 car stopped at the traffic light next to you to have a $5,000 bicycle strapped to the roof.

There’s an old joke about jazz musicians: they’ll put a $5,000 instrument in a $500 car and drive 50 miles for a $5 gig.

We have a big controversy brewing here over mountain bike trails. It’s a long story, I’ll write about it someday. A recent salvo was a LTE by a trucker insinuating the bikers were a business using the roads for profit and threatening trucker safety.Report

In defense of the bike people and their spending, I managed to rationalize buying a bike that retails for $800 even though I don’t ride all that often. In my case, I started off considering a $300 bike, which is about the cheapest you can get from a real bike shop. But I wanted fenders, which are maybe $50. But that’s for the worst kind of fender that fell off the last time I added them to a bike. Also, I wanted an internal hub, which is at least a couple hundred dollars and requires installation that I wouldn’t find trivial. And I need a comfortable seat, which is another $80 upgrade. And a rear rack, which is at least $100 for something that won’t warp with more than 20 lbs.

Anyway, by the time I added up what it would cost to buy an inexpensive bike and add the things I felt I needed, I found it would be cheaper and easier to buy a bike that already had what I wanted out of the box. And the other parts were better too. For example, the grips on my bike are much more comfortable, and I got a built-in darkness-activated headlight powered by a recharging generator.

And I don’t actually care about biking all that much. I could definitely imagine someone who does care spending a couple thousand and have it make sense.Report

Just making sure you got the irony of A recent salvo was a LTE by a trucker insinuating the bikers were a business using the roads for profit and threatening trucker safety, @vikram-bath; that was humor. I know, mine’s very dry to the point of brute.Report

It is awesome! I’m very happy with it. The Jamis Commuter series to me is the perfect bike to recommend to people who aren’t really that into biking just to bike around but instead just want transportation. It’s geometry is a bit more comfort-focused. They generally put the dollars toward making it a practical thing for carrying cargo comfortably rain or shine rather than on being the fastest bike out there. It works well for me because I almost never just go out for a bike ride. I’m going to the pharmacy or grocery store or bank or hardware store or library.

I did manage to get it cheaper since it was the “last year’s model” when I bought it.Report

Why they’ll put graffiti in places that are (a) difficult to reach and more importantly (b) where almost no one will see it. Art, political statement, or just vandalism — why do it where it’s so seldom viewed?Report

One common place is the sides of overpasses where roads cross over freight rails. In order to tag in those spots, you have to climb over the side and stand or hang or otherwise risk your life to tag the side. And the only people who will ever see it are rail employees and people who hop the trains (with the taggers likely unauthorized riders as well).

I went camping in the mountains in Tennessee, once, and my friends and I walked a train track for a few miles into the woods along the side of the moutain to spots where absolutely no one who wasn’t either driving or riding a freight train, maintaining the track, or dumb enough to walk that far on the tracks, would ever be, where we found everything covered in graffiti. It’s like people were jumping off in the middle of the woods just to tag that place.Report

It gets the art in front of people who will likely appreciate it more – having done the urban exploring required to see it, their eyes are more open to everything there. Also, it’s less likely to be buffed right away.Report

As someone who has recently returned to the cult of the bicycle, I have to say that all of those pictures could be taken in Sacramento, as with the description of the bike trails. I no longer live in that great city, now in the bay area, but the bay coastal trail is quite similar.

I am returning to cycling because I cannot ride motorcycles any longer due to massive damage to my back, but still want to enjoy the wind and exploration abilities of two wheels. It has been 30 years since I seriously rode, but that is OK, as it is just like riding a bike!

I am not someone who would spend anywhere near that on a bike, mostly from cheapness, but also as I am someone who prefers the design elements of older bikes and I enjoy the challenge of taking an old $10 10speed or 3speed internal hub and bringing it back up to spec.Report

One of this winter’s projects is going to be modifying my handlebar/control layout. My neck is not as young as it once was and I’m going to have to make my posture a bit more upright to accommodate it. I’ve test-ridden a couple of recumbents; unfortunately, the one that I really like costs three times what I paid for my current road bike (although the quality of the build is really lovely).Report

I think that album’s pretty good. I should do a post on it at some point. Pair her with some Liz Phair and Stephen Malkmus, since as near as I can tell that’s what her childhood record collection must have consisted of.Report

I’m with Chris; cyclists are obnoxious. At least a car is going to get in trouble if they’re plowing down the sidewalk. Cyclists don’t- and they have the gall to be indignant at you if they plow into you because you didn’t hear them yelling for you to get out of their way because you had headphones on.

Bicycles on sidewalks make me long for a stick for their tire spokes (rear wheel of course).Report

My youngest brother, who is an avid cyclist in avid cycling Eugene, suggests that so many cyclists are assholes because the world is harsh for them, and that may be true, but man, so many cyclists are assholes.Report

University towns/areas are absolutely the worse. Lots of cyclists. Lots of newbie cyclists. Lots of newbie, young, arrogant, preoccupied, easily-distracted cyclists. Combine that with streets laid out assuming a small number of cars (that would be parked in the alleys), which have become frighteningly narrow as on-street parking ate away at the width. It’s a perfect storm. Not that that’s an excuse.Report

I’m willing to let a lot of cyclist street-side lawbreaking slide (like running stop signs, assuming they did their due diligence and looked/listened); and I am also aware that they often ride on the sidewalks, because there are inadequate bikelanes or room to safely share the street with cars; but all that said, I agree, a cyclist should not be riding on the sidewalk if there are any pedestrians present, or likely to be present (like they might step unexpectedly out of a storefront door).

While I am all for better bikelanes or wider streetlanes to accommodate bicyclists, bikes currently occupy a weird space in US transportion; almost everyone knows bikes are a very good, efficient transportation solution for a lot of everyday needs; yet they do not fit well into either the pedestrian or motor paradigms – too fast for one, too slow (especially to start up, which is why we don’t necessarily always want them stopping at red lights and stop signs) for the other.

In what other arenas do “good” problem solutions exist; yet get squeezed hard on either side, by the needs of two in-many-ways-less-optimal ones?Report

The fact that the world has basically been built for cars pits pedestrians and cyclists against each other, unfortunately. A fact compounded, unfortunately, by the fact that cyclists are assholes (as I said).

The obvious example is intersections. At an intersection, cyclists are loathe to stop unless there are cars coming, for safety and conservation of energy reasons, but intersections are also one of the most dangerous places for cyclists, as car drivers are not particularly diligent when turning, and therefore often fail to notice cyclists (especially coming from behind them and to the right). So cyclists will frequently do things at intersections that make them safer but put pedestrians in danger, like hop into crosswalks or turning on reds without stopping to look (and I don’t just mean turning right — I was almost hit by a cyclist yesterday who was going the wrong way on a one-way street, turning left on a red he couldn’t see, because he was going the wrong way! as I walked with the light in the crosswalk).

Obviously, pedestrians are not perfect. I frequently see them hop into bike lanes when crossing the street, without even looking to see if there are bikes coming, but I’ve had countless run-ins with cyclists, including a handful of collisions, and in each case it has either been on a sidewalk (often right next to a bike lane!) or in a crosswalk while I was crossing with the light.Report

The only people who have ever come close to killing me were driving motor vehicles.

Crossing the street in a bike lane that had the right of way (at a nice slow speed so no one would be surprised), I looked right into the eyes of a lady stopped at the stop sign. She looked right into mine. We had confirmed eye contact, it was great, I went into the intersection – and she pulled out and T-boned me. SMIDSY. She had been looking directly through my apparently fully transparent head, at a piece of road somewhere behind me.

More drivers nearly right-hooking me than I can count. Hasn’t happened in a while because I’ve gotten pretty assertive about claiming my lane.

Two people actively trying to run me off the road with their cars because they thought I should have made the molecules of my body and bicycle change phase and pass like so many neutrinos through the parked cars at the side of the road so as to let them pass.

Blowing through a crosswalk at 10 or 20 km/h over the limit when the car in the lane to their right, that had stopped at the crosswalk for some probably personal reason that had no bearing on them, was blocking their view of me.

I don’t count the guy on foot who punched me and knocked me off my bike when I was riding in the bike lane as “nearly killing me” – it hurt, but at worst I might have broken a rib or something.

Ride a bike every day for a few years – you’ll conclude drivers are assholes.Report

Don’t get me wrong, I think simply by virtue of driving, people are assholes (and if they’re driving with no one else in the car, doubly so), and cars represent a much greater threat to my life than cyclists, but the number of run-ins I have with cyclists are much greater than with cars, despite the fact that there are many more cars. There are a couple reasons for this: 1.) I’m much more wary of cars than I am of bicycles, because cars are so much more deadly, and 2.) Cyclists are assholes. That is, cyclists generally have no problem moving into pedestrian spaces, or failing to yield right of way to pedestrians when they should, if it’s convenient for them to do so.

I say this as someone who spent years riding a bike around town before Austin had any real interest in expanding its bike routes, and therefore spent a lot of time dodging car doors and cars turning right without looking for me passing them in a bike lane, or cars turning onto the street without seeing me in the bike lane, and so on. I understand what it’s like to be a cyclist, and I still think that a huge portion of them are assholes.Report

Yeah, asshole drivers are at least vaguely cognizant that their asses will go to jail if they are up on the sidewalk (watch out at the crosswalks though), but asshole bikers are right in those spaces with pedestrians.Report

I’m pretty sure I feel that way because I don’t drive, so cyclists are “like me” while motorists are “the other”. That feeling is biased by fundamental attribution error on my part.

Some motorists are assholes because they’re all humans; some cyclists are assholes because they’re all humans. I just generalize my encounters with asshole motorists in a way that I don’t generalize my encounters with asshole cyclists. I suspect that may you do the opposite to some extent.

You’re right cyclist assholery tends to involve entering pedestrian spaces without enough consideration while motorist assholery tends to take other forms (except insofar as you consider residential streets, with or without without sidewalks, “pedestrian spaces”).Report

What I mean by saying motorists are assholes by virtue of driving is that driving is, in and of itself, an asshole thing to do. Granted, some people don’t have a choice where they live, but for everyone else? It’s an asshole thing to do.

There’s nothing extreme at all about it. Spend some time on the Garden State Parkway. Us humble folks in New Jersey agree that driving is an asshole thing to do, so much so that we make sure that we’re at maximum asshole level when driving at high speeds.

I’ve never driven in New Jersey, but I’ve spent a lot of time in Chicago. I used to joke that on the interstate in Chicago there are three speeds: suicidal (105), speed of traffic (85), and scared shitless (45).Report

I am blessed by living in a large suburb with a long history of accommodating cyclists: trails, bicycle lanes, wide sidewalks separated from the biggest arterials where the speed differences are especially dangerous. Yes, there are asshole cyclists. But for every asshole cyclist I see, I see two drivers who insist that the bike lane is a right-hand turn lane whether cyclists are present or not, or who stop at the traffic light completely blocking the crosswalk the pedestrians and cyclists need to cross safely. Last week I was stopped at the light in the clearly marked bike lane, and some idiot came up behind me with their right turn blinker on and honked because I was in their way.Report

I know a guy here in town who frequently takes and posts pictures of cars, delivery trucks, food trucks, etc., parked in bike lanes, with captions like “Bike and Delivery Lane.” There’s one street in downtown that has a full-lane bike lane that is separated from traffic by a median, is painted a different color, and has painted bicycles on it, and he’s posted several of photos of cars driving in it (here’s the lane).Report

“I’m with Chris; cyclists are obnoxious. At least a car is going to get in trouble if they’re plowing down the sidewalk.

At least pedestrians don’t step in the street in front of motor vehicles because they know that’s hazardous to their health. But they’ll walk against and the light and completely ignore a bicycle transiting with the light.

And motor vehicles don’t give a flying fig about stopping at a red light before making a right turn on red.Report

My cynical old Dad, when he handed me the keys to the beat up ol’ K-car he’d bought for me to shuttle my siblings and I back and forth from school, informed me that drivers are crazy and pedestrians are blind so I should drive accordingly. He also stated that I should try my damnest not to hit a cyclist or a pedestrian but he added “Son, if you do hit one, make sure you kill them.”

Cyclists occupy a funny space. They move at the speed and with a level of maneuverability roughly of a slow car but have virtually none of the killing power so pedestrians generally ignore them. But cyclists have none of the survival oomph of an automobile in a crash so they cannot ignore cars. It’s not a good space to be in I admit.Report

The advice I got from the flip side was “On foot, assume motorists can’t see you. On a bicycle, assume motorists can’t see. On a motorcycle, assume motorists see you just fine and are out to kill you.”Report

I don’t like cycling on sidewalks either, but when I do it’s because my choice of “which of these two very unsuitable options shall I consider the bike lane?” has forced me there. My comfort with on-street cycling, while greater than most people’s, is not infinite. I try to be considerate that I’m a guest on the sidewalk, but it seems there are always going to be a few people for whom my very presence is an unbearable imposition.

Next time you encounter someone riding a bike on the sidewalk, instead of going “they’re doing that because because of what is inside them – cyclists are assholes,” try looking around – where are they coming from, where are they going to, and is the sidewalk the least bad way to do that?

@kolohe – On the “Argh scofflaw cyclists blow off stop signs” front – the only actual study I’m aware of found that the reason people on bikes blow through stop signs is mostly about the “people” part, not the “on bikes” part: while 95% of people on bikes didn’t stop at stop signs, also 85% of people in cars didn’t.Report

The street I live on has a magnificent bike lane dragonfrog. In some parts it even has those steel dividers to prevent cars from driving on it even if there’s no bikes in the lane. But I still have had bicyclists collide with me from behind because I had the audacity to walk in their bike lane (aka the sidewalk). In my cosmology while the devil may drive a Prius his son drives a bike.Report

Your experience differs from mine. From what I’ve seen, people on bicycles know they’ve vulnerable. They understand physics and don’t want to be hit.

Also, looking for cross traffic can look a lot like “not looking for cross traffic” – they can hear better. Even with earbuds in and music playing, they can hear their surroundings better than a driver with the windows up but no music playing. – they’re already going much closer to the speed of a “rolling stop” in a car – so to slow down to the same speed doesn’t look like much to an outside observer – when their eyes are at the same point as the driver of a truck with its front bumper at the stop line, they’ve still got six or eight feet of stopping room. The truck driver commits to entering the intersection with a less clear view of cross traffic than the bike rider who still has time to decide whether to stop.

As I’ve suggested all over this thread, some of that may come down to differences in what we’ve each seen, but a lot probably comes down to differences in which of the things we’ve seen, we’ve remembered.Report

Along the northern Front Range, there are several tributaries that form the South Platte River that are all about the same size, named “creek” or “river” rather arbitrarily. All of them are roughly comparable in length and natural drainage to the Los Angeles River. More water volume over the course of the year because of (a) actual snow pack, (b) diversions from the west side of the Continental Divide and (c) downstream water delivery obligations.Report

The view finder in the beat-up little digital camera I carry on the bike is improperly aligned, and I always forget that until I upload the pictures to my Mac.

Surprising that as sophisticated and pertickler a user as the author of the post hasn’t availed himself of widely available image-editing tools to straighten his tipsy pics… (No big – I’m sure there are readers who like em just fine that way.)Report

Yes, I have software to straighten my pictures. Same open-source command-line software package I’ve used to manipulate images for 20 or so years. Why command line? Because it works exactly the same way on Unix, Linux, Mac OSX, Windows, OS-9, and every other operating system I’ve had to deal with. Because it’s trivially scriptable — work out the details, then do exactly the same thing on the other 47 files. Because I know what algorithms are being applied. Because it lets me control exactly how many lossy serial encodings get done. So, why didn’t I make use of it?

Frustration. This was the first post where I was allowed to use the WordPress post creation tool the editors use. I apologize, deeply and sincerely, to all of the editors over the years who have forced my hand-crafted HTML guest posts into the creation tool. I promise to figure out why the initial published version of my HTML rendered properly on Firefox but reduced the images to roughly 2×2 pixel dots in Safari, and not to repeat that particular mistake (no promises about different mistakes).

Impatience. After two weeks, first at a niece’s wedding and then at a granddaughter’s birthday, I wanted the post up now (see first count about access to the creation tool). Placeholder images leaning to the left remained in, with an “explanation”. Alternatively, call this one laziness.

Pettiness. Would anyone call me on the failure to tidy up the images? Would they be polite? (Yes.)Report

Netpbm. Converts pretty much any image format you can think of into anything else. Dozens of manipulation tools. Unlike ImageMagick, which is a swiss army knife, Netpbm is a zillion individual programs that each do one thing and use UNIX-style pipelines to combine things together. Back in the day the pipeline approach was valuable to me because I could quickly write a one-time special-purpose image manipulation routine and combine it with all the others.Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

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Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

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From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

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Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.